Girl And Dean - Handcrafted Sketch Comedy - www.girlanddean.co.uk

I checked your site, it hadn't been updated

2010-02-03T10:38:00.005Z

Yeah sorry about that, you know how it is...

G news: Adam Riches' delightful 5 star wonder of a show, Rogue Males (featuring Jess) is on at the Soho Theatre this Friday and Saturday.

The Ransom Club starts again on starting Tuesday 9th February at Lowdown at the Albany, it's every 2nd Tuesday of the month.

D news: A lot of sharpening of pencils, and tapping on keyboards to make some jokes for your ears and for some conferences and for some festivals - news of the dates anon. And due to a strange turn of events, she is also due meet Sean Bean (King of the North) in real life next week! She will try not to call his wife Mrs Bastard. BTW Sean Bean's lawyers, this is a ref to a sketch from 2007 and in no way a dis on your client or his wife....

So, er, what have you two been up to? Well..

2009-11-11T20:12:00.005Z

...half of us is doing this

it's at Lowdown at the Albany and the next one is Tuesday 8th December

and the other half of us is doing this:

Nine Comedians and Carols at various venues around the UK. Dates and venues in the diary above.

Oh and you might have caught sight of one of us here:

(You can watch the whole series and admire the vast array of wigs on iplayer)

Oh and we've been watching Don't Tell the Bride, knitting, doing a bit of Singstar, you know the usual. But enough about us, how the jiggins are you?

5 stars; 5 a day

2009-08-13T12:01:00.004+01:00

Congrats to our lovely friend and world-class yakult gulper* Adam Riches who's Edinburgh show Rogue Males got a 5 star review here. Woot! As you will see excitingly Jess as in "our Jess", "Girl-from-Girl-and-Dean-Jess", "Armstrong-and-Miller's-Jess" (more of that later) is appearing in Adam's show. Bonus! It's every day at 3.30pm in the Cellar at the Pleasance. It is selling out fast, so book a ticket if you are heading up to the Fringe.
* that's not a euphemism. (At least it's not meant to be.)

Meanwhile Dean attended the launch of Innocent's Big Knit last night at their HQ, Fruit Towers. Innocent give about £250,000 to Help the Aged each winter with the sales of smoothies with little bobble hats on. It was a lovely evening of fruit and cake and knitting little hats and more fruit and more cakes. Here is a little reminder of one the marvels of the fruit world, the Mango.

Good grief, not this again...

2009-07-23T22:15:00.007+01:00

Someone has written an article in the Edinburgh press going on that there aren't any women comedians, and any way women aren't funny. (Sound familiar? Boring innit.)

Delightful comedian Susan Calman has invited female comedians to respond not by whining and moaning, but by getting together for a photo of all the female comedians performing at this year's Fringe, which will illustrate once and for all that there are a lot more funny females than just "Jo Brand* and that Iranian one**". Woot!

The group for the photo info is here. Nice work Ms Calman.

*Getting On on BBC4 is ruddy marvellous by the way. Good work Jo, Vicky and Joanna - the women who wrote and appeared in it (insert own joke about women and multi-tasking here please).

** Shappi Talk on Radio 4 as a super thing to cook your tea to. Tonight I made a korma whilst Shappi and Hils Barker (another girl of funny - that's at least four mentioned on this page so far. Crikey!) did thoughtful funny stuff about religious diversity. Acer pacer.

Gig one, knit two

2009-06-27T20:40:00.006+01:00

We are super busy this week in the run up to Girl and Dean's Tearoom at the Hen and Chickens for the next two Fridays (July 3rd & 10th) at 7.30pm. Tickets can be found on the H&C website here. Do come - it will be a celebration of baked goods based silliness, with musical input from Tom Wateracre and alpha male opinion from Adam Riches. (And yes there will be biscuit bingo!)

Below are two very short films Sarah made about delightful knitting idiocy,with the help of knitters at the UK Ravelry Day* Thanks to everyone who helped out. Enjoy!

*Ravelry is exactly the same as Facebook but for knitting - only with less spying on your ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend, and more advice on aran cabling.

Oh and the rather cheeky pattern can be found here

Smoothie Movie

2009-06-17T13:26:00.004+01:00

Innocent the friendly squashers of fruit have described the National Mango Month film as " Very amusing". Thanks fruit friends.

The film is embedded below if you haven't seen it.
(We are also quietly pleased that the viewing figures for this film are beating the one made by the official Mango board.)

Hey Mango!

2009-06-07T00:48:00.005+01:00

In this economic downturn, we all need a bit of cheering up, so this month why not observe the celebration of National Mango Month! It's a totally real celebration of the betacarotene-ful fruit of wonder throughout June. Surrey 6th former Jocasta Holdsworthy was ahead of the fruit celebration game and has helpfully provided this short film to explain the pros and cons of a nature's best orange fruit that isn't an orange.

Public service announcement to the people of Coventry

2009-06-06T10:18:00.007+01:00

Today is the first ever UK Ravelry Day in Coventry. Ravelry is, well it's sort of like facebook only with wool, which sounds a bit niche, doesn't it? Except this niche has 3 million members worldwide. Today it's just some of the British ones meeting up.

So Middle Englanders, please be aware that the risk of having you eye poked out in Coventry City Centre by a knitting needle is higher than usual. Thank you

Sarah (Dean; 4-eyes) will be wandering around recording interviews with knitters for a podcast project. More news of that soon (as soon as she has learnt how to edit audio to be honest...)

In other news we are doing a short set at Falling Down with Laughter at Belushi's bar on Borough High Street on Tuesday night, hosted by the delightful Alexis Dubus and remember Girl and Dean's Tearoom at the Hen and Chickens on Fridays 3rd and 10th July, book now for baked goods based comedy.

From now on we only do gigs, which have food in the title...

2009-04-26T16:47:00.004+01:00

Please check the gig calendar above right for details of a couple of gigs we are doing in May - the Comedy Hamper on Wed 20th May with the gorgeously funny Boom Jennies at the Canal Cafe Theatre, and as guests of the Cheese and Pineapple Club (seriously those girls know how to throw a party of laughery) on Wed 27th May at Lowdown at the Albany .

Plus get ready for Girl and Dean's Tea Room 2! A celebration of tea urns, global village life and inbred caricature with houseband Tom Wateracre on Fridays 3rd and 10th July at the Hen and Chickens...more anon.

Oh yes, we make all our own clothes...

2009-03-16T23:59:00.014Z

We were interviewed by the Independent about knitting and crafting and the recession for their Money section. We had our picture taken knitting by a nice photographer lady called Terri surrounded by lots of knitting needles and woolly things. It was all very Cath Kidston.

You can find our lies, exaggerations and the strange pretense they enforced upon us to suggest we don't know each other here.

In the end the article only went online without a picture, which is a shame as Sarah was knitting a pink and red striped mitten, which had so made ends hanging down (from changing wool for the stripes) that it looked like bloody entrails. (Slightly less Cath, bit more Carrie.)

Eunuch, Eunuch? Who's there?

2009-03-02T15:30:00.007Z

Germaine Greer has an article about why women aren't as funny as men in the Guardian today. I would write a witty response, but I am not concerned to prove myself.*

Indeed come to the Hen and Chickens tonight for Girl and Dean and Chums, when people of all sexes (and none) will make jokes and it will be delightful. 7.30pm - see diary above.

*Essentially why Greer thinks this state of affairs exists.

3 apples, 4 strawberries, 5 oranges....

2009-02-24T23:24:00.004Z

It's Eric Carle's 80th Birthday this year and it's 40 years since The Very Hungry Caterpillar was published. Coincidentally we've got a sketch about it in our new show. To see it, best come to our new hour long show on Sunday 1st March or Monday 2nd March at the Hen and Chickens at 7.30pm. Do come, we are creating our new show with funny song man Tom Wateracre, and special guest character comedian Adam Riches. Just £6.

Tiggy & Jocasta on US Politics

2009-01-18T21:51:00.005Z

In honour of the historic changes in the White House on Tuesday, Surrey sixth formers Tiggy & Jocasta are here to explain the US political system to the British public.

Catch them explaining more political hot potatoes very soon...

Make your own Girl and Dean!

2008-12-10T20:46:00.010Z

Wonderful illustrator Si Smith has made cardboard cut-out versions of Girl and Dean. Here's what the final cut-outs look like:

Cute, hey? You get one body and 2 interchangeable heads. (Girl has 20:20 vision and Dean is a speccy four-eyes in case you don't know.)

Download the file and make your own! Do send in photos of your cut outs out and about. A Prize for the most exotic location.

Slow Club

2008-12-01T15:56:00.003Z

The people what wrote* the music for our Edinburgh show are a band called Slow Club. They are from Jess' home town of Sheffield. They are doing a Christmas gig tonight at Union Chapel in Islington. You should go if you like upbeat whimsy noise from a pseudo brother and sister beat combo.
* When they wrote the songs, they didn't know they were writing for us. They just wrote them. We heard them with our ears and paid them money to use them in our show. They don't know who we are...sigh....

We are going to be doing a gig in Guildford at a church called Nine comedians, Nine carols On Saturday 13th December. It is a carol service with jokes. Tim Vine, Jude Simpson, Miranda Hart, Tom Wateracre and Jo Enright are doing it to. Plus 3 others. It is going to be lovely and Christmassy. It is £7 in advance or £9 on the door. plus " carols on the big screen, comedy sketches, video link-ups, mince pies, mulled wine and other bar drinks, live music, & much more.." (We are the sketch bit.) More info on this anon.

Barack to the Future?

2008-10-21T23:14:00.003+01:00

Lately we have been thinking about what Tiggy and Jocasta would make of the US elections...and so Girl and Dean are pleased to announce that we are going be performing at US Election Night Comedy Special organised by the charming bowl-hair-cut stand up, Chas Early on November 4th. Here's the blurb: "A night of comedy & satirical fun at the expense of the would-be new leaders of the Western World. Entrance £5. Doors/bar from 7.00pm, show starting 8.00pm, the venue Downstairs at CAFE KOHA, 11 St. Martin's Court WC2 (the alley down the side of Wyndham's theatre) - www.cafekoha.com. Attractions include stand-up Gordon Southern, ("razor sharp wit", Evening Standard), comic songsmith Tom Wateracre ("hugely inventive and rich in sparkling lines", Chortle) and MC Chas Early ("one-liners to treasure at every turn", Daily Telegraph), plus special guests and news updates from the Election throughout the night."

Expect cutting edge satire with wooden spoons from us....

You are probably know this anyway...

2008-10-15T13:02:00.012+01:00

but it's National Knitting Week this week. Our charming friends at super knitting shop, IKnit London are running a series of events every night this week to celebrate*. It is the only licenced knitting shop in the world too, so whilst you K2P1YO, you can have a G&T.
*Dean was on the winning team for their pub quiz on Monday night,and she only bloody won Ralph Fiennes..kind of

We would also like to say goodbye and thank you to the lovely Doug of "Doug's Sketchy Night" fame. Doug has run an always-full-to-the-rafters monthly night of sketch comedy at the Albany in Great Portland Street for the past 4 years, and he has been kind enough to give us a slot on many an occasion. Doug is going on to do solo things and standing up himself, so tonight is the very last Sketchy night, so do pop down if you can make it (We can't actually go due to work stuff..sniff, sniff...)

Our lovely chums Pegabovine have got the latest episode of the Pegabovine's House of Mirth podcast available for download here. It was taped live at the Canal Cafe Theatre back in the spring when we did a double bill with them, so you get a full 2 words from Jess at the beginning. Woop!

And finally our favourite boys of sketch, Idiots of Ants have got all of their E4 Funny Cut up for your perusal on youtube - go here to see the funny

love G&D x

It's the Adam and Pippa show - this Tuesday.

2008-10-05T17:13:00.004+01:00

Hallo, we are doing a gig this Tuesday at Lowdown at the Albany with the delightful Pippa "nominated for best newcomer, IF.comeddies 2008 Evans, and Adam "Alpha Males" Riches. Do come down to see a plethora of sketch funny, details if you click the box with the dates at the top right of this page.

This night is something of a reunion as we all did our respective shows in the Cellar venue at the Pleasance this year in Edinburgh, but more importantly it is a reunion for the "We hate James Riches club". James is Adam's brother who managed to break Adam's leg in two places during a stage fight in performance of Alpha Males. Our show and Pippa's were canceled while paramedics gave Adam loads of drugs and dragged him up the cellar stairs. Nice one James*.

Do come on Tuesday - you might get to sign Adam's cast

*As Mr Creighan would say "Only kidding!"

Welcome!

2008-09-03T21:36:00.007+01:00

Hello there. This is the new Girl and Dean website. It is still having tweaks and things done to it, so keep checking back as all kinds of nice things will soon be in place for you to make and do. (A big thank you to our website builder. As promised, a pie will be on it's way to you as reward.)

Do join our Facebook Group and check out our MySpace page
The links are on your left.

As you will see in our gig calendar up to the right of this page, our next gig is tomorrow, Saturday 6th September, where we will be performing as part of the I Knit Day at the Royal Horticultural Halls in London, where we will be rubbing shoulders with all kinds of wool-lebrities. It start at 11 and finishes at 7pm, and we will be doing 4 sets, come and say hello.

Girl and Dean on EdFest.tv

2008-08-13T23:42:00.000+01:00

Check out Girl and Dean, and their puppet friend Jane Torville, as they are interviewed by EdFest.tv!

Girl and Dean on "The Edinburgh Fringe 2008 Show"

2008-08-04T23:21:00.001+01:00

Whilst at the 2008 Edinburgh Fringe, Girl and Dean were interviewed for the Edinburgh Fringe Show on the Podcast Network.

Download podcast here.

"Finally Brian Luff chats to 'back for the difficult second year at Edinburgh' sketch double act Girl and Dean."

Girl and Dean NIVEA Funny Women Awards 2008 Finalists

2008-06-21T22:44:00.000+01:00

About Us

2008-06-20T13:56:00.010+01:00

Hello we're Girl and Dean aka Jess Ransom (20:20 vision) and Sarah Dean (glasses).

We first met in a corridor at the City Lit on a cold January evening in 2006, where we were both hanging out with a man from Hong Kong who was wearing a white jumpsuit and silver shoes*. We took our first show to Edinburgh in 2007. We have since been joined in our efforts by super director Richard Hurst (Bill Hicks: Slight Return, Potted Potter, Miranda Hart), with whom we have excellent lunches.

*Unfortunately we lost touch with him shortly after. Perhaps he has the internet. Mr Fung, are you there?

We have performed sell out shows at the Canal Café Theatre, London, Friargate Theatre in York and the Pleasance, Islington, and we do regular short set gigs on the comedy circuit in London and Brighton. We were finalists in the Nivea Funny Women Awards 2008 performing at London's Comedy Store. Our 2008 Edinburgh show was nominated for Best Sketch/Character/Theatre show as part of the Funny Women Fringe Awards

We knitted all our props for our 2007 Edinburgh fringe show (including beards, nuns wimples, and nunchucks for ninjas. The wool was provided by the lovely people at Laughing Hens) This resulted in newfound status as ‘wool-lebrities’ and lead to us performing to thousands of craft lovers at the UK Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace and the launch of Stitch n’Bitch UK,as well as us being featured in Vogue Knitting. In 2008, whilst our show maintained its ‘hand-crafted’ feel, there were significantly less woolly items owing to our knitting related RSI!

Nice things people have said about us....

"Wonderful" Time Out

“This sassy tour de force tickles the ribs from the get-go.” The Scotsman

“Girl and Dean are a unique & creative duo with an acute sense of the imaginary.“ Edinburgh Evening News

“They ping-pong through an intelligent set of surreal fun without missing a beat. TV awaits.” The List

“Excellent. I foresee a long career ahead.” one4review.com

“A very gifted pair of confident artistes with a bright future.” Scotsgay

“Lovely stuff. The props alone deserve an ovation...some truly nutty characters it all nips along making an hour seem too short.” Edfringe.com (audience review)

“Fresh, inoffensive fun. A true festival highlight. The hour flies by with quality sketches, knitted together with the best soundtrack at the festival. A show for everyone.” Edfringe.com (audience review)

“Loved it! Very funny.Two engaging performers. I took my 13 year old daughter & she really enjoyed it. Recommended.” Edfringe.com (audience review)

“What a hoot!” Christine Hamilton

Make Things!

2008-06-19T12:24:00.001+01:00

Girl and Dean love craft. Here's a place to share in the delights of hand-crafted loveliness with Girl and Dean.

Flat Four Radio - UK Stitch & Bitch Day 2007

2008-02-05T23:09:00.000Z

Girl and Dean were interviewed at the UK Stitch & Bitch Day 2007 for the Flat Four Radio podcast.

Download podcast here.

"Comedy act Girl and Dean talk about knitting a pair of headphones and glimpsing their hero, Debbie Stoller. Debbie, who's the editor of Bust magazine and author of the Stitch 'n' Bitch books, reckons knitting a rubbish jumper could lead to murder. You have been warned. Meanwhile, Felicity Ford shows us her favourite knitted walking stick cosies and Peter Wyton performs his poem about getting chucked out of a pub... for knitting.

"Recorded at the UK's first Stitch 'n' Bitch Day in November 2007."